Consulting Operations Manager - Technical Project Manager

**Position:** Consulting Operations Manager \| Technical Project Manager **Location:** United States – Remote, Chicago, IL area preferred (1\-day in office per week) **Employment Type:** Full Time or Contract\-to\-Hire **Who this role is for:** You turn signed consulting agreements into well\-scoped, properly staffed, accurately billed engagements. You combine project control, capacity planning, financial rigor, cybersecurity literacy, and client judgment \- and work independently to protect delivery quality, scope, and margin. **What You'll Do** * Own cybersecurity consulting engagements from internal handoff through scheduling, delivery, billing, and closeout. * Translate statements of work into project schedules, consultant assignments, milestones, dependencies, and billing triggers. * Coordinate capacity across a small billable team, balancing client commitments, consultant skills, utilization, and deadlines. * Maintain Excel\-based project and financial controls using formulas, structured tables, lookups, WORKDAY, SUMIFS, and related functions. * Administer milestone billing and contract mechanics, including deliverable\-based invoice dates, payment schedules, scope reductions, credits, and billing reconciliation. * Lead client communication, resolve delivery or billing disagreements, and maintain a clear, fact\-based position when necessary. * Identify scope creep, quantify its effect, and convert out\-of\-scope requests into approved change orders before work proceeds. * Oversee testing, findings, reporting, and retesting workflows; improve operational tools and handoffs while protecting sensitive client and financial information. **What You Bring** * Experience managing projects or operations in a professional services, consulting, or other billable environment. * Advanced Excel capability, including formulas, structured tables, lookups, WORKDAY, SUMIFS, date logic, and reconciliation \- not simply data entry or workbook maintenance. * Working knowledge of milestone billing, contract mechanics, deliverable\-based invoicing, scope reductions, and change orders. * Experience coordinating schedules and capacity for a small team of specialized professionals. * Strong client\-facing written and verbal communication, with the judgment to manage disputes constructively and defend a well\-supported position. * Cybersecurity literacy covering common offensive or defensive assessment types, findings, evidence, remediation, and severity ratings. * Demonstrated self\-direction, problem solving, scope discipline, and discretion with sensitive vulnerability, client, pricing, and margin information. **Strong Pluses** * Experience with PSA, CRM, or sales\-pipeline platforms such as Autotask, ConnectWise, ServiceNow, Salesforce, or HubSpot. * Experience with work\-management and Microsoft 365 tools, including Planner, Jira, Asana, Monday.com, SharePoint, Lists, Teams, and Outlook. * Experience administering PlexTrac or a comparable security repor